I had another physio session today – a very good one. Although I actually felt slightly worse coming out of the hospital, I feel significantly better now and I’m attributing it, rightly or wrongly, to the physio. Anyway, I mentioned to my physio that back fastening neck braces (aka cervical collars, neck collars etc.) were a pretty stupid idea IMO. She looked rather astonished and then said, ‘Of course! You’re quite right. Well they probably make them … but of course the department will just buy in the cheapest option.’ Yup, that sums up the NHS, but then again, I’m very, VERY glad we’ve got an NHS, for all I moan! There are lots of places on line to buy front-fastening collars. The cheapest one I’ve found is here but there are lots of other options. I shall be buying one just as soon as some of my clients pay me!

PP-
I replied to your comment but I don’t know if wordpress notifies you so i copied my response here!
Yeah, the diet thing is a big unknown. I’m experimenting my way through it…that’s the only way to do it since there has been so little research. I’m seeing enough improvements to keep me encouraged though…I’m down to 8mgs or prednisone! (I was on 20mgs just last month)
JF did reference the part about intestinal permeability and I actually went online to look for the original studies and found a few links for you. If these don’t work, google this: “williams bjarnason intestinal permeability rheumatoid arthritis.” The first three articles and the first link are about the studies on it. Basically it is based on the indirect and direct damage from NSAIDs…the acids in NSAIDs do insult to the intestinal barrier while the COX-1 inhibitors reduce the production of prostaglandins which have many functions including decreasing gastric acid output and increasing gastric mucous output. This still doesn’t answer the question of what causes the arthritis in the first place? There are many other things that cause insult to the gut like an imbalance of microorganisms in the gut caused by years of eating poorly, genetics, parasites, alcohol, stress, medication). Read more at http://altmedicine.about.com/od/healthconditionsdisease/a/TestLeakyGut.htm I am going to keep posting tidbits of info that I find out, but I’ll be better about referencing from now on!
Thanks for your question, it helped me figure out some more stuff!

Phew – glad it wasn’t me, anyway. I can understand the frustrations of people who NEED disability benefit and can’t get it, but people just milking the system are must maddening!!! Grrr. So I know where you’re coming from. ;o)

Fantastic – thanks so much for all this info! I shall have a proper read of it all just as soon as work calms down a bit and I get some time to spare! Excellent news about managing to reduce the prednisone so much … everything crossed that things keep going well. Yeah, it seems very odd that the gut problems are based on NSAIDS, and we take NSAIDs to get rid of the RA … so we were, on the whole, not taking them prior … sooooo … it’s not a question of RA being caused by gut problems, as you pointed out. It’s all very odd, but very interesting! I shall look forward to more of your posts on it.

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A bit about me

My name is not Pollyanna and I'm not a penguin. If you'd not worked out the last bit you should probably stop reading this and seek out a psychologist.

This is a blog about me and rheumatoid arthritis - sounds like fun, huh? Well I'm hoping it'll be a bit more fun than it sounds - hence the Pollyanna part. I'm going to try to stay positive about it and play 'Pollyanna's glad game' - finding reasons to be cheerful basically.

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